Lurker > Suprak the Stud

HashtagSEP posted...

Do you have a source on this? I cant find it and I will be very upset as Im about to be laid off.

Its on CNN at least.

400 to 300, through September instead of through August, and make it so the first 11k or so is not taxable (which it was before for some reason).

Of course no reason they couldnt just do those second two things without the garbage idea of lowering UI.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Veronika

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

I didn't really consider this when writing it up, but it also feels silly for Fuyuhiko to go "wah wah I just wanted a friend" but have taken out a series of actions to get Peko killed. Not even anticipating she would take the bat. But setting up the frame job on Hiyoko, getting Mahiru alone, and hiding the murder weapon. He was planning to murder Mahiru and have Hiyoko take the fall. That's what all that set up was for. And if this works, Peko dies with everyone else. Fuyuhiko gets the kill and Peko dies. "Cool"? It isn't completely incongruous with his character, but upon reflection it does make his insistance that he cares about Peko feel slightly hollow.

Again, not important. Just something I thought about when I was almost done with that write up.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

I mean, Monokuma is 100% clear that regardless of what Peko says that she is the one responsible for Mahirus death. What was her plan if her Hiyoko distraction worked? Everyone votes Hiyoko and then Fuyuhiko, the person she loves and has sworn to protect, dies with everyone else. By going along and making it look like Hiyoko did it, she is possibly dooming Fuyuhiko to death. This is a rule clarification she absolutely needed like right after she killed Mahiru. Going boy I sure do hope Monokuma thinks I am a tool and not a person ho hum while doctoring the crime scene to point to someone else is a level of stupidity that blows away anything Hiro or Akane ever did. The successful execution of her plan results in her escaping, not Fuyuhiko. And, say she was smart enough to at least realize that and her goal was to make it look like she was framing Hiyoko so they'd catch her. Then it is even dumber, because SHE DID DO IT. There is no convincing needed. No need to make it look like you are Sparking Justice. All she has to do is tell them she did it. I have literally idea what is going on in this case because of how stupid the whole thing is, but I know whatever it was that Peko severely messed up in some way.

This is an absolutely convoluted mess of a plan that seems to confuse that Fuyuhiko and Peko have different plans and motivations. Fuyuhiko is the one who wants to frame Hiyoko when he is setting up the murder. Peko is the one who wants to just get Fuyuhiko off of the island. Both of these tend to get wrapped into Pekos overall plan though in a way that just doesnt make sense. A lot of this is the fault of how terrible the motive is. The motive targets literally one person in Fuyuhiko. Of course, that is too obvious. So instead, they have to come up with some reason why someone else might want to kill to help Fuyuhiko. And then they have to figure out a way why this person would want to kill for Fuyuhiko but then at the same time rationalize why this person would be ok with Fuyuhiko dying if they win the trial. And their solution isthis. This horrible, convoluted mess of a plot and murder plan where almost nothing makes sense.

Oh, and then the game has the AUDACITY to give us the BS line about how Fuyuhiko just wanted to talk to her. Like, he tells that to us during the trial. I really only wanted to talk to her or something like that is the line. Yeah, you know what you do when you just want to talk to someone? Im asking because Fuyuhiko sure as hell doesnt. Because just talking to someone doesnt involved writing notes to separate your target from their friend, drugging someone and hiding them in the back room, and hiding a murder weapon under a bench before your target gets there. If the game had just said that Fuyuhiko was planning to commit the murder, it makes more sense. Instead, they try to frame it as a crime of passion because Mahiru told him murder was bad. But obviously this makes absolutely zero sense considering the stuff Fuyuhiko had to do before hand. Like I said before, it is a mess. I cant tell if the game forgets who did what between Peko and Fuyuhiko, but the way it switches between the two of them and wanting Fuyuhiko to have some semblance of innocence so the last scene hits hard makes the case so monumentally stupid.

There are only a few things that save this case from the basement. Like I said, I like the cast in the second game and at this point most of them are still alive. It still has the fun early game energy where so many people are around and you can talk to them and figure out their personalities, and you just have the gnawing sense of dread that half of them are going to die very soon. I love the early chapters in Danganronpa games just for the setup, which I still think is one of the most fun in gaming. Also, Kazuichi wanting to spy on the girls had BIG PORKYS energy, which was kinda fun. And the execution scene was excellent. That was probably the determining factor getting this all the way up to 11. I love Peko and Fuyuhiko struggling to get words out before Pekos time is up, and this wouldve been an all time ending if the game had the guts to kill Fuyuhiko at the same time for his role in things. The whole scene was amazing, and it pretty much saved me from absolutely hating the entirety of this chapter. Unfortunately, the rest of the chapter is straight up awful. I was very excited to get into the game after the introduction, and this whole chapter did so much to take the wind out of my sails. What an awful way to start an otherwise very good game.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

#11: Case 2-2
Strengths: That final execution scene hits hard, Kazuichi recruiting you to ogle girls has a Porkys vibe to it
Weaknesses: The motive, Pekos plot, the game trying to get you to feel bad for Fuyuhiko
The One Sentence Summary: The one chapter where youre worried the second game might suck.

I dont think it is a very controversial take to say that Danganronpa 2 is vastly superior to the first one. Like, not even close. The overarching story is much better and the characters are better and the writing is better and, perhaps most importantly, it is just a better game. Looking back at the first game without the consent mechanic feels very archaic and a lot of the trials have really stupid segments because of it. There is no logic drive and no consent, so the game really struggles to point you in the right direction sometimes without just straight up giving you the answer. So, all things being equal, Im likely to favor a case in the second game over the first one just because of how much more I like the second game. And that fondness for the second game is the absolutely only thing saving this case from the bottom. I abhor 2-2. There is almost nothing I like in this entire case and it is so bad that after I finished it I was literally worried that this game might be bad. I was two cases in and I had a very real worry that everything I heard was wrong and Danganronopa 2 actually sucked. Thats how bad this case is.

What is amazing is how many things this chapter gets wrong. The biggest for me is how targeted the motive is here. The motive (which is awful by itself) is the fact Mahiru was involved in the coverup of the murder of Fuyuhikos sister. So you have a motive that would only motivate one specific person and would only make them want to murder one other specific person. I cannot describe how utterly disappointed I was when I saw that was what the motive. Remember in the first game when the motives were something along the lines of I will reveal everyones secret! so everyone had a reason to murder and no specific person was targeted for the crime. This felt so incredibly lazy compared to what I was expecting and I soured on the case immediately because of it. After getting to the ending, it makes sense for several reasons. It hints at these people being Ultimate Despair and even gives a reason why some of them mightve joined the group. It is a lazy motive because Junko doesnt care about spreading despair here and just wants the murders to start happening and it was the path of least resistance. Like, I get that. It still sucks. It especially sucks in the moment when I am four chapters away from having any sort of reason why the game went ok so Fuyuhiko you should try to kill Mahiru this chapter and the rest of you are off the hook.

The trial is also horrible from a strictly gameplay perspective. The swimsuit full of gravel is far and away the worst piece of evidence in either game. But Suprak, you say, forgetting this is a computer and I cant actually hear you, what about evidence x? Isnt evidence x bad too? My response would be X! X!? Youre not looking at the big picture here! And my less joke-y answer is that youre wrong. Youre forgetting how stupid the swimsuit full of gravel was. It doesnt make sense. It isnt close to making sense. It is this absurd solution to a problem you dont even need to solve. Why are we figuring out HOW the murder occurred? That doesnt matter. Like at all. It doesnt impact this case in any way. We need to know the who of it to understand the motive, but the how is immaterial. Fuyuhiko was driven to almost murder because his sister was killed. He wasnt driven to almost murder because the murder weapon was stupid as hell. That wasnt why he was mad. He wasnt yelling at Mahiru because your friend used the dumbest weapon possible YOU BITCH so why the hell should we care? In fact, the whole Twilight Murder Syndrome thing sucked. It sucks when youre playing it and it sucks when youre using it in the trial. Everything about it is dumb and I hate it so much. I dont care if you want to be an indy game dev, Monokuma. Do that shit on your own time.

Oh and this isnt even talking about the horrible introduction to the trial where you literally are given like six multiple choice questions in a row about which character is what role. Yeah I know its like three minutes long, tops, but what a hilariously boring way to start a trial. I felt like I was playing Dora the Explorer. This character says PIG BITCH. Do YOU know which character says PIG BITCH? . .. Who says PIG BITCH? . Thats right! And then it goes from there to some pretty basic boring stuff, culminating in a Sparkling Justice aside which also makes no sense. Like it doesnt belong in the trial. There is no reason for it, other than for the game to wink at the serial killer reveal of the first game. It is a misdirect that serves no purpose other than to make the writing seem dumb. There is no evidence in this entire trial Id consider clever. Hey the shower is broken no fuck you. What a thing that is obviously going to come back later. I knew the shower was involved literally the moment Monokuma popped up to say that. Its so dumb, and made even dumber by the fact THIS IS A DAMN COMPUTER SIMULATION WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE SHOWER IS BROKEN? You have a missing semicolon somewhere, Monokuma. Find that.

Also, I cant even begin to describe how monumentally stupid Pekos plan was. Like this is far and away the dumbest in either game and I will hear no other arguments. Sure, there are other cases where this is dumb or silly, but no part of what she was trying to pull off made any sense at all. Zero. Her goal here is to protect Fuyuhiko, or have him escape the island. So, with things playing out as they were, she had two options. Let Fuyuhiko kill Mahiru and then do everything else exactly the same so it looks like Peko killed Mahiru. Or, once she kills Mahiru, walk to the diner holding the bloody bat while carrying Mahirus corpse and a giant sign that says hey I killed her. She is trying to FRAME HERSELF for a MURDER SHE COMMITTED. Do you know how easy it is to do that? Her goal is to convince everyone she killed Mahiru so Fuyuhiko goes free. She goes about this by framing Hiyoko, doctoring the crime scene, placing a fake mask to implicate Sparkling Justice, and using her ninja skills so she leaves no footprints. Again, in a plan to implicate herself, she hides her footprints showing her leaving the scene of the crime. This is the opposite of framing. In order to make it look like she did it, she made it look like she didnt do it. She washed the blood off of her body and hid the footprints. Peko, what the hell are you doing? You did the murder. Tool or not, you are the one who swung the bat and were the thing that killed Mahiru. The last thing you should be doing is hiding the evidence pointing to you if you want people to believe it is you. Her goal is to implicate herself in a crime she herself committed, and she FAILS IN A WAY THAT SHOULD BE FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Earthshaker posted...

Re: convenient plot fever:

I've had two instances I can remember in my life where I randomly got a fever+chills+delirium for literally no reason whatsoever, that went away after a night of rest, and had no other flu symptoms or whatever with them and it was the strangest damn thing. So that part isn't implausible.

I do agree about the whole "the rules are sacred" thing being hinky with her getting herself killed by following to the letter at the end, but let's face it: with as overly analytical as they try to make her, that "I let myself be seen for a despair orgasm later" motive I got from it just clashes with her whole long game plans.

Well it was more "plot convenient" because of when he got it and how it lasted only long enough for the game to do what it needed to to muddle the story. It felt silly and isn't ever really addressed. Unless Junko got him sick but I have no clue if that was ever mentioned or not.

NeatoAnAccount posted...

I agree that Junko's willingness to cheat sucks. If she's willing to cheat, why does she kill herself at the end? It just feels arbitrary. The villain just decided you got to live. They could've made this story way better by just having one character ask "why should I believe you, when you just attempted to execute Makoto under false pretenses?" But it kind of makes every character look stupid that this massive hole is never addressed.

There are so many resolutions the game could've had. Kyoko actually figures out how to know when Monokuma can see her. Maybe she could figure out a way to beat him even when he's cheating. Or maybe Junko never cheats, and the ending where she voluntarily kills herself doesn't feel arbitrary. Or maybe the killing game actually ends with 3 people remaining. You know, so you can solve more murder mysteries in the game where the gameplay is solving murder mysteries

obviously 1-4. didn't sakura know she'd die when she killed herself? that's not a very good plan you fricken moron

Yep I agree with all of that! There are so many other ways to make this less dumb and I could think of a bunch right off the top of my head too.

xp1337 posted...

Yeah, that's how I rationalized it too. She messed with the feeds/knew about potential blind spots/whatever and orchestrated the whole thing to frame Kyoko for the purpose of deceiving the outside world. I'd say that maybe Kyoko was just too paranoid/on-guard to target directly but with the resources at Junko's disposal it's hard to believe she couldn't handle it. idk maybe worried that a struggle would spill out into too big an area and she couldn't/didn't want to black out an entire area of cameras and make it obvious she was tampering?

OTOH, even when she succeeds in pulling it off and gets Kyoko... the bad end shows the killing game stops, albeit because the survivors agree to just live in the school.

Yeah, however I was ratinoalizing it was leaving holes and honestly felt maybe more than the game deserved? If the game isn't going to say it, I feel kind of weird trying to fix the plot for it in a way that makes the most sense. I do agree this is the best explanation though that makes the most sense with what they do tell you, at least.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Yep.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Jesse_Custer posted...

Seal - Kiss from a rose

Kiss the Girl - Little Mermaid


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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Up next: The dumbest plot in either game

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

I also fully admit that maybe I forgot stuff so maybe some of these upcoming complaints don't have as much bearing but there is a lot of weird stuff happening around this case that I just don't get or think is explained well. Why does Makoto get a convenient plot fever? How is it instantaneously cured the next day? Is this something that is ever explained? Did I just forget it? How the hell does Kyoko know she needs to go defend Makoto from masked Junko? I do remember at the end of the case she says she can hear the god of death's footsteps and knew something was afoot. Is that...is that really the explanation we were going with? She can hear death? Even if she can hear death's loud ass clomping down the hallway, why would she leave Makoto after she fends off Junko? Makoto is like having delusions from fever and she just fought off a murder attempt. So she just goes "well back to sleuthing sleuth sleuth sleuth sleuth gotta find them clues"?

And wasn't she on the second floor dorms looking for clues? Makoto checks that place next chapter and there are like two places of interest to look at. You shouldn't have been gone all day, Kyoko. Like she misses the entire murder investigation because she is upstairs and doesn't hear the alarm go off or whatever, but then she comes back down just in time for the trial. I get the dramatic tension of what's going on, but the game doesn't really pull it off. You know immediately that isn't Kyoko's body because it wouldn't make sense from a story perspective. So the "oh boy who could it be maybe it is Kyoko!" didn't really play well with me because I had figured out almost immediately that it wasn't. She seems to be gone just to be this dumb red herring that I'm sure literally everyone crossed off their list immediately. I mean, here is what we know: everyone has an alibi besides Makoto and Kyoko. We know we didn't murder this person and move her body up to the greenhouse, so that leaves Kyoko. So then anyone with a brain knows it can't be Kyoko because there is no way the game would give it to us that easily. I don't know a lot about what is going to happen in a Danganronpa game, but I do know this: if there is ever one suspect the game is clearly pointing at before the trial starts, it isn't them.

And, again, maybe some of this stuff was explained better in chapter 6 and I just forgot so forgive me if I am omitting something important here. But the truth is even if everything in those past two paragraphs was wrong, it wouldn't' change my ranking. I still do not like the set up and I do not like the trial and I do not like all the padding and I do not like how this feels like an intro to case 6 and nothing else. You get no resolution in this chapter, and of course you can argue this chapter is important because it is where Junko traps herself. But again I would've preferred them to do that all in one continuous case rather than give us one case which is basically a tease and then another case that actually resolves all the loose ends this case leaves behind. I honestly can't think of anything I like about this case. Maybe Alter Ego saving Makoto at the last second and Monokuma looking panicked as it is going on. I guess that would be the highpoint for me, but I don't really have anything else positive to say about what happened here other than "chapter 6 tries its best to make up for it".

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

#12: Case 1-5
Strengths: None
Weaknesses: Everything
The One Sentence Summary: The one chapter where nobody dies and nothing happens

When Im assessing cases here, Im really talking about the entirety of the chapter the case occurs in. Daily life, deadly life, and the class trial itself. And a big part of my ranking is how I felt when I first played it, bookmarked by the starting and ending points of only that chapter. Some stuff might cause me to revise it slightly, but I try to really take that into account for the individual chapter that it occurred in, if that makes sense. Something happening later on that improves my opinion of things is great, but it doesnt change how I felt about playing that case the first time and I think the chapter that contained the twist or revelation deserves more credit than the chapter where I was annoyed because I didnt fully grasp the twist just yet. I hope that makes sense even if you personally disagree. Anyway, I bring that up now for general ranking purposes so you sort of understand why some cases are ranked where they are. But I also bring that up now because that specifically pertains to the very last case on my list, case 1-5. Case 1-5, in many ways, feels incomplete. And, hey, thats because it is! Now it does finish up in the next chapter obviously, but this is the only chapter in either game that doesnt really tell a self contained story. Obviously, it is a set up for what happens in case 6 but even if I was just judging it by that metric I have issues. I dont really like the way it sets things up, I dont like the characters I am left to interact with, I dont like the daily life, we arent given the tools to solve everything, and I kinda hate the trial. Beyond that though it was great!

Part of the issue is who you have left to interact with. At this point were at the finale stage of the cast and we just have the survivors and Monokuma this chapter. But the survivors include Byakuya, Toko, and Kyoko, none of which I particularly like. And, of course, the game focuses very heavily on those characters this chapter (especially Kyoko) because that is all they have left. The Danganronpa games always seem lousy at picking out survivors I actually like to talk to, and the first game is particularly egregious on that end. The daily life segment is also just kind of dumb. You have Byakuya agreeing to join the group only to continue being a jerk right off the bat and forcing Kyoko to hand over her key. Then you have Kyoko disappearing to run her own investigation that you dont even find out about this chapter. And then you have Makotos random flu pop up and thats about it. I know Danganronpa writing definitely has its own weird flair and Im mostly fine with that, but this one is one of those cases that is really just kinda boring from the beginning to the end. The big exciting thing is Monokuma cheating to get Makoto killed (or Kyoko if you watch the bad ending) and everything besides that is just kinda underwhelming.

I also understand why Monokuma cheats, but it also doesn't seem to fit with the "rules" they keep blathering on about. Kyoko at multiple times in the case after this will mention how Monokuma couldn't just kill her because it would be breaking the rules so they had to orchestrate this fake murder to kill her. You know what else is breaking the rules? Straight up killing Makoto and framing him for a murder he didn't commit. The case at once wants us to believe that Kyoko couldn't have just been killed because Junko wants to abide by these rules to cause maximum despair but also that Junko is willing to just throw the rules away in order to get Kyoko/Makoto killed. It is this weird contradiction between why Junko can't just murder Kyoko and why Junko tried to make stuff up to get Kyoko killed, and it basically all comes down to "look we wanted to have one extra case here so this is how we're doing it".

I suppose you could argue that maybe Junko...blocked the video feed to the rooms she needed to go between when she was setting things up so the people she was sending out the despair live stream to couldn't tell what was going on, and in that way she was still making it look like Kyoko carried out the murder to everyone on the outside so people thought the ultimate hope was still killing each other. That's kinda how I rationalized it to myself, but I'm not sure they were ever super clear on that specific part of the case and maybe I am giving the game too much credit. But, hell, even if I am right at that point just do the same thing and kill Kyoko and frame one of the living people for it. It is this weird contrivance they half follow, half break so they can set up this extra case and the whole thing feels very sloppily executed. If you want to completely abandon the rules to get Kyoko (or Makoto?) killed, then just do it in a less roundabout, crazy way.

I think my biggest problem with this case though is it isn't a self contained story. I'm ranking these cases based on how they both feed into the narrative as a whole and how strong they are in that specific chapter, and on that last metric the chapter fails completely. This isn't really a self contained mystery here, and you don't have all the clues you need to figure things out. It is a prelude to chapter 6 really, and a lot of it winds up feeling like straight up filler. I mean, there is a portion at the very beginning here in the trial where you have to prove Kyoko isn't a ghost. It takes up multiple segments. It's honestly kind of funny so I'm not totally dragging it here, but at the same time it feels like more than half of the case here is filler where the game is just stalling to make this an acceptable length so they can end it and get on to the actual finale. It always felt like the shortest chapter in the first game to me, and I don't know if it actually was or it just felt that way because nothing of value was happening.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Out of curiosity, I googled "West Virginia minimum wage polling" and found this, which is even more depressing. I haven't looked at the poll itself, but the good news is that 60% approve of the $15 minimum wage. 71% approve of Manchin's plan though, including a higher amount of democrats than the $15. This doesn't quite answer the question though, because (and again I have read the poll itself) I think the better phrased question would be "if yes (approve of the minimum wage increase) then do you support plan a or plan b". I feel like if it is phrased that way, then the $15 plan would actually be more popular, nationwide at least.

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-manchins-11-minimum-wage-more-popular-bidens-15among-democrats-republicans-1573489

(I couldn't find anything for WV itself after a brief cursory search that wasn't the poll linked above, but I could be missing something)

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Oh cool, thanks. But:

A new poll out in February by the One Fair Wage Coalition claims that 63% of West Virginians support raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025.

https://onefairwage.site/

One Fair Wage is a national coalition, campaign and organization seeking to end all subminimum wages in the United States and increase the sustainability of wages and working conditions in the service sector.

There is no way I believe that poll. It is like when a candidate publishes some internal poll that shows them like twenty points above where unbiased polling shows them. Like that sounds like a great organization, but I am not trusting any poll they put out based on the thing they're advocating for.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

LIke there are a few things at play here imo:

1) This bill needs to be passed yesterday
2) No republicans are voting
3) Manchin is an absolutely required vote and he has no reason to be afraid of pressure from Bernie or AOC or whoever else you want to suggest because he's from WV

I cannot imagine how long it might take to convince Manchin that he's wrong, but you run the risk he never comes to that conclusion. So now you're stalling the bill out even longer for something that Manchin basically has no reason to bend on. Blame Manchin but I cannot imagine the gymnastics you need to be doing for Sanders to shoulder the blame when he has been doing everything he could think of to get basically all the good things you want in the bill in the bill.

TheRock1525 posted...

Can I put 100% of the blame on Maine? Fuck Maine.

Alternatively, this is good too.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

fuming posted...

You guys always go back to voting. Most people vote completely incoherently and don't have a clue what they are voting for. They know if they like the guy in office or don't like the guy in office. A PR campaign that goes after the guy for being the reason you don't get a minimum wage increase that the overwhelming majority of voters in west virginia support would be tons of pressure on Manchin. They should be pushing his constituents to call and email his office. The point of the town hall is that if someone actually gets in front of people and talks to them coherently, they get it. Most of the reason politicians say no to things is because they don't have any pressure on them to do anything but say no.

Link me to the poll please. I haven't seen much to suggest WV is in support of any good policy, ever, so I would be surprised by that.

WV is not some secret progressive enclave where we would do better if gosh darnit we could just get our message across. It is the most conservative state in the country and they elect nothing but republicans at every level at all times. Those are the most important polls and democrats simply do not win in WV. It was the state that loved Trump the most, iirc. I don't care how good Sanders is at getting his message across - he isn't changing that.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Thats also an acceptable percentage of blame.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

fuming posted...

Go watch Bernie's town hall in West Virginia and tell me he can't appeal to them. Look at how Manchin got furious when Kamala made appearances talking about passing the covid relief package in West Virginia and Arizona, he absolutely doesn't want that pressure on him. We can't definitively say that pressuring him would work, rather than push him to just change to GOP or something, but we can definitively say that not pressuring him hasn't changed his mind to support the original package or the $15 min wage.

It is not Bernie Sanders fault West Virginia sucks. Democrats ran a super progressive candidate in WV and lost by like 65% points. Him having one town hall with people that were willing to actually listen doesnt change things enough, sorry.

Sanders deserves literally zero percent of the blame.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

UltimaterializerX posted...

They. Are. The. Same. Party.

Again there are 48 senators that want to increase unemployment and get relief checks out ASAP. 100% of these senators are from the Democratic Party. Republicans want zero dollars and zero unemployment.

Democrats are bad and/or stupid and/or incompetent = fine
Democrats and republicans are the same = strong disagree not even close

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I agree in theory, but in practice the same brain poisoned people who say the Dems need to bend to Manchin would say Bernie is choosing to support the Republicans instead of better than nothing.

huh? Who is this in response too?

Also I would bet Manchin is significantly more popular in WV than Bernie.

Bernie literally did everything he could and tried a couple of different ways to get it through. People looking to blame people other than moderate dems here (well, especially republicans but I mean that would be obvious) are stretching like crazy.


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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

xp1337 posted...

This is just such a stupid move by Senate Dems. The bill has 75% support nationwide and the checks are the most popular part of it. What do? Reduce eligibility?

Hopefully the House stands firm and fights for this in conference but if the handful of Senate D ~moderates~ stand firm on this they might not be able to win this fight.

Also GOP looking to pull stall tactics on this bill by apparently planning to force the clerk to read the full text of the bill instead of letting the standard operating procedure of dispensing with it via unanimous consent instead. I don't think it will meaningfully affect the timetable (but still likely to take up hours) but it's just so petty.

Not only is it stupid, but I cant imagine it saves them much money. Its still full payment to everyone making 75k or less. It was already nothing for people making 100k or more.

So you have this incredibly narrow window youre targeting in an effort to reduce the cost for the bill. There isnt enough of a population here to make a dent in the overall price of the package, so you wind up paying less people than all previous stimulus packages in order to save a trivial amount of cash. It is so stupid from an optics standpoint, and you gain literally nothing for it. The people opposed to this arent going to care youre saving a sliver of the money you were going to ask for.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Best part about Neera getting dunked is seeing the KHive and anti-Sanders bloc blaming it on Bernie and Bernie Bros.

Love to see those people upset.

Ah yes noted Bernie Bros. Joe Manchin and the entire republican party strike again!

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

fuming posted...

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/541241-kaine-plans-new-push-on-war-powers-after-bidens-syria-strike

This would be wonderful and long overdue if it happens.

Based...Tim Kaine?

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Dels posted...

man i'm a danganronpa hater (okay mostly i just hate the first game's cast) and even i wouldn't say there are any cases i "don't have a single good thing to say about" other than 2-6

i think every other case in the series is fine, even if some of them are sort of underwhelming or have a few contrived moments.

2-6 is your least favorite case?!?

Thats gotta be the hottest take in this topic so far.


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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

SeabassDebeste posted...

kesha - tik tok
lmfao - party rock anthem

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

DoomTheGyarados posted...

They already did that. See not seating a Supreme Court pick for almost a year, and how they themselves fired this position when they disagreed with them.

Fuck the rules.

Also when it comes to bringing people out of poverty, yes 100%, fuck every rule standing in the way. Why do you like Poverty, Plum?

^
Made up a rule to not sit a justice then rushed one through at the absolute last second braking the rule they just made up.

As Abraham Lincoln once said fuck the rules only bitches follow the rules now

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Mm thats fair. I was trying to only do three tiers but that might not be fair here to how I actually feel about the cases.

Ok we have two tiers coming up before I get back to the characters. Two are in the legitimately bad not fun cases tier and then two are in the has some moments but also some significant problems tier.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Now to switch things up! Im going to do the four worst cases before I go back to characters. These four cases I consider to be in a tier by themselves as legitimately bad not fun cases. The very bottom of the Danganronpa experience for me, and the ones that just arent fun to play for various reasons.

Up next: I think this is the only case I dont have a single good thing to say about.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

DoomTheGyarados posted...

https://youtu.be/ph3RGXt2vQk

Good Biden story

Stuff like this is why I usually let "democrats need to be better" go unchallenged, but I become a grumpy unfun person to deal with when people start saying "both parties are the same".

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

With all that being said though, there are plenty of things I did like about Kyoko. I particularly appreciated Chapter 6 Kyoko, even if I was still mildly miffed she almost got me killed. The scenes where she is trying to piece together what is going on with her dad were great and they do explain her cold personality for most of the game a bit more. Basically any time Kyoko lets some cracks through and she shows some emotion, it works out well. And I also did appreciate her in comparison to Byakuya. While I didnt like the way the game used her and how she was just handing out solutions all the time, the one exception I was willing to make was whenever she was dunking on Byakuya during one of the trials. She has the sort of intelligence Byakuya thinks he has so whenever she is able to throw it in his face a little bit it would warm the cockles of my heart. Oh, and soup can on the head Kyoko might be the cutest art in either game. There are a couple of others that are close, but in terms of character sprites that has to be one of my favorites. It almost made up for the fact I was down in the garbage because of her in the first place.

I know this is probably much lower for Kyoko than most lists, but I just cant bump her up any higher in spite of the stuff I liked. This is the more good than bad tier, and thats absolutely where she slots in for me. She is another one that would be at least one tier up if they had made a little change, and I would guess that if the game had the mechanics of the second game, they wouldnt have been in such a box when writing here character. She always felt like a crutch to me. The writers didnt know how to work something into the gameplay, so it would be eh just have Kyoko tell everyone. Thats really why she places so low for me, and Id be more willing to overlook some annoying character choices in some of the cases and the low points of her personality if it wasnt for this. Im not going to argue with someone who likes Kyoko because with her I definitely at least see the appeal. She just wasnt someone I was a huge fan of. Sorry Kyoko stans.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

#31: Kyoko Kirigiri
Main Cast (Female) Ranking: 15/16
Survivor Ranking: 8/11
Ultimate Ability: Ultimate Detective
Actual Ultimate Ability: Ultimate GameFAQ

So I think this is the ranking where I lose the last shred of Danganronpa cred I had. The good news is that this should be the last bad opinion I have for a while. Kyoko was just someone that didnt resonate for me like she did for a lot of people. I always see here near the top of lists or at the very least towards the middle, but I just couldnt get into her as a character. The ending of Danganronpa 1 was rough for me because I was stuck with Toko who I hated, Byakuya who I did not like, and Kyoko who I also wasnt a huge fan of. Kyoko was definitely the least offensive of these three. I do not hate Kyoko, but she was definitely more bad than good for me and a lot of the stuff I did like did not come until near the end of the game when a large part of my opinion had already been formed.

My main problem with Kyoko though is she feels like she hampers pretty much everything else in the first game. Kyoko by necessity needs to be this super genius because of her ultimate ability, so it is always she that is figuring things out. Because of this, the entirety of the cast in the first game comes off like bumbling morons outside of a couple of characters. I felt like they wrote themselves into a corner by throwing the Ultimate Detective into the game and having her live to the end. It would be like if one of the characters in this cast was Sherlock Holmes, and because of who they are you need them to be like two steps ahead of everyone else so their character fits. It makes sense for her character for her to always be like hey you can figure this out Makoto you already have all the clues, but it doesnt make her a particularly fun character. I actually thinks Kyoko makes the rest of the cast worse just by her being around. The writers always need to figure out some way for Kyoko to be the smartest person in the room, and there are so many times she gets in the way of the game.

In a way, Kyoko is what takes place of the confirm and logic drive mechanics from the second game. They hadnt thought of that yet, so instead Kyoko just serves as an exposition drop in a lot of the cases. Rather than having us figure things out, Kyoko pops up once or twice a case to just spoil things. Theres a part in the third case where she just up and says what if Hifumi wasnt actually dead. Now, this is something I myself had figured out way earlier, but it wasnt something Makoto had figured out in game. And, instead of having him figure it out, Kyoko just rushes in and shoves him to the side so she can scream it at everyone who is listening. She does this in basically every single case (except chapter 5, I suppose) in the entire game, and it honestly gets annoying after a while. Shes like this Mary Sue that is great at everything and just keeps giving us the answers to things that wouldve been more fun to have been figured out.

Im also not a huge fan of her personality. I think possibly as a nod to Sherlock Holmes (or at least the old movie versions of Sherlock Holmes) she comes off as relatively personalityless. Shes kind of emotionless, this crime solving robot that doesnt seem to have any interest in things that arent related to murder cases. She does have little scenes where she shows some spark, so it isnt as though she is totally bland, but even outside of trials a lot of time she feels like exposition, the character. Shes there to tell you things in a very matter of fact way and chew bubblegum, and shes all out of bubblegum because it is made out of erythitol, xylitol, maltitol, isomalt, fructose, and ten other things she will slowly list off to you. It is strange she is an end game character, and yet I had absolutely no free time events done with her until I was in the post-game mode. I just wasnt particularly interested in what she had to say. I was assuming it would be something bland and passionless, and there were so many other characters Id rather hear from. Even characters I thought I hated, because at least that is some sort of emotional response rather than the dull dialogue Id get out of Kyoko.

There are also a couple of story related events I want to briefly go over to help support my Kyoko is more annoying than fun thesis. The first, and I admit this is petty, is the hissy fit she throws when you dont tell her about Sakura right away. She has spent the entire game holding secrets and being mysterious and the first time Makoto has a secret, she goes into high school scorned girlfriend mode and starts giving Makoto the silent treatment. Hes even like I just need to confirm something please wait because he is being a good person and doesnt want to out Sakura unintentionally, and Kyoko reacts like no greater indignity has ever befallen anyone in the history of ever. She spends most of the chapter sulking and refusing to talk to Makoto. Kyoko, I dont have time to deal with this shit right now. People are getting MURDERED and I cannot deal with high school relationship level drama. I expected lots of stuff in this game, but Kyoko pouting in the corner and posting passive aggressive Facebook statuses was not one of them.

But that isnt really what Im still irked about. No, what Kyoko needs to answer for is GETTING MAKOTO MURDERED OUT OF SELFISHNESS. Ok, I understand that there is more to it than just that and there is a certain sense of self preservation going on since Byakuya is being is usual overconfident self without knowing what the hell is going on. But still, the trial in chapter 5 (if you get the true ending) is Makoto basically going we should believe in Kyoko and Kyoko going yeah but maybe Makoto though. I know shes stalling for time because she hasnt figured out the case, but that doesnt change the fact she gets Makoto straight up murdered. She has no clue Alter Ego is going to show up to hero ball the whole thing, so she has to know that what she is doing risks getting Makoto killed. Monokuma ending things early obviously threw a wrench in her plans, which I might be more forgiving of if the end result was not a Makoto pancake. She couldve been honest with what was going on and where she was and why she and Makoto both have an alibi for part of the night, but she goes the be mysterious and vaguely hint hey it could be Makoto route of things which IS NOT COOL KYOKO MAKOTO DOESNT WANT TO DIE EITHER. Her reasoning is basically hey if I die we wont figure anything out which is 1) vain as hell and 2) probably true because everyone else drank the idiot juice to make Kyoko seem even smarter in comparison. But still, she has the choice of being honest and putting herself in more danger or trying to stall and putting Makoto in more danger, and she picks the latter and doesnt look back.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

DoomTheGyarados posted...

I am forever taking that L.

Same. I remember defending her in topic. Oops

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

fuming posted...

what about the ones who were lizards?
(disclaimer: this is a joke. only click on the spoilers if you like to read jokes. I am not trying to mislead or harm society.)

I didnt before but now for some reason I feel like I should join a hate group.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

tcaz2 posted...

It's got a good story. The gameplay isn't the best, however- its very repetitive with not a lot of enemy variety. I enjoyed it a decent bit when it came out, but it probably feels pretty dated these days. And yeah, it's not really straight horror. It's more like a horror atmosphere without actually being horror most of the time. It's got a lot more in common with stuff like darker episodes of The Twilight Zone (which its heavily based on).

I'd recommend it if you are interested in it, personally.

Yeah I agree with this pretty closely. The story was very interesting but the gameplay was kinda meh even when it first came out. Id still say its worth checking out if youre interested though.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Yeah I understood the point of Byakuya for sure. I just didnt really like interacting with him ever. Especially because they were constantly pairing him with Toko for scene after scene I hated.

And I agree with that assessment of Fuyuhiko. I didnt hate him past twist but I also found him kind of dull. I fully understand Im in the minority here but I like the weirdos with the big personalities.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Im sure thats what it is.


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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Up next: the character I think they had the hardest time writing

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

RaidenGarai posted...

Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up

Taylor Swift - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

I mean that's not the ideal. What you want is the quality care I mentioned. But part of being humane is allowing escape from a bad situation if that occurs. It shouldn't happen, but the escape valve should be there.

Another point of clarification - we refer to them as children but this policy applies to all unaccompanied minors. You have people in their late teens being detained too, it's not just completely helpless babies. They've got SOME agency.

I mean that still way too young to leave them to their own devices. The government also doesnt allow 16 year old Americans to just live on their own.

But I think we agree on the best solution being safe housing until a permanent solution or family in the US can be found so Im really just debating to debate at this point.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

I mean this is easy, you build actual shelter and pay trained social workers for quality care instead of building detention centers run by for-profit companies that kids are literally not allowed to leave. Big difference!

Homeless shelters don't function by locking up the homeless, right? Same deal.

Yep that makes sense, other than I guess I would be a bit more nuanced on the time limit. Homeless people are free to leave when they want sure, but I do not think the US government should just let children leave as they want until they have found a safe permanent home for them. Otherwise youre going to open them up to predatory actions and risk losing them.

Improve the quality of the shelter and replace guards with social workers 100% though.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Like theyre coming here for help. What we should be doing is giving them safe shelter until a permanent solution can be found.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

What was the alternative in 2019? Lets do that.

Trump sent them back to their home country. That isnt what you want.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

I mean, if they're being detained it's still a cage. If you want it to not be a cage the children need to easily be able to leave.

I'm not saying they don't need to be shelter. I'm saying that what Biden is doing is not humane shelter, it's not a "good enough" improvement. The people getting the contracts to build these temporary shelters are the same companies who oversaw the tent camps and human rights violations at detention centers, and that is plainly not good enough.

Oh ok I see thanks. I guess I had assumed Biden would have mandated better conditions than Trump but admittedly I have seen no evidence either way so I cannot say that for certain. Either way thanks!

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

DoomTheGyarados posted...

I mean finding the parents so them being there isn't the forever plan is a nice change.

^

And the underlying policy is different. A lot of the children Trump detained had families and we just cant find them now. Trump was forced to stop in 2018, but a lot of damage was already done by that point and some of these kids are holdovers from then. The new population came here alone and I would think it would be less humanitarian to just let them go and hope they arent the victim of predatory actions for the rest of their journey. Biden isnt just kicking them out like Trump, so either you just let them wander off or you have to find some way to hold them until you can find a safe home for them.

Whats the other solution Im missing here?

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

I haven't read much on it, so correct my ignorance please if needed. I am just reading the articles that were shared by Jamaal Bowman and others so I'm sure I'm missing important details.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/immigrant-children-camp-texas-biden/2021/02/22/05dfd58c-7533-11eb-8115-9ad5e9c02117_story.html

Government officials say the camp is needed because facilities for migrant children have had to cut capacity by nearly half because of the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border has been inching up, with January reporting the highest total more than 5,700 apprehensions for that month in recent years.

Last week, he and House Democrats introduced a plan that would provide a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. The administration also reversed some of Trumps expulsion practices by accepting unaccompanied children into the country, a change that also is contributing to an increase of minors in government facilities, officials said.

Like I'm 100% for OPEN BOARDER ANARCHY. I'm about as far left on immigration as you can get. But I also see the logic for holding onto children that come into the country unaccompanied until you can find safe housing for them. The reason they needed to open this facility is specifically because Biden is letting them into the country, unlike Trump who was just kicking them back out again.

Right? Again, please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

https://twitter.com/kylekulinski/status/1365341696029044741?s=21

Honestly the one-two punch of reopening the exact same children-in-cages detainment facility they did photo ops at and bombing Iranians in Syria is just incredible for how indefensible it is.

Add-in no checks, no $15 minimum wage, the outright rejection of wiping away all student debt, etc, and Jesus Christ its an Awful Governance Done Quick speed run.

Someone tell me Im wrong.

Im not saying Trump would be better, Im asking why you were so convinced this is the best we could get, and how exactly do you think they hold control like this???

If the Dem base just lets this go by and doesnt start shouting as loud as the left, were gonna backslide to worse than Trump in no time

I need to look more into this, but the same "kids in cages" thing is not entirely accurate (I don't think at least based on the limited reporting I was reading yesterday). Trump was separating families at the boarder. Biden is specifically for unaccompanied minors. Children that do not cross the boarder with their family and need some place to stay until their families are located or until the US government can find an appropriate guardian. It makes far more sense to detain solo children than it does to pull them apart from families that come with them.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

The $15 minimum wage could theoretically just be packaged in a later, less urgent bill targeted for reconciliation correct? Or is this the cleanest shot they have? Im not 100% sure which designation of the three bills this fits best under.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Grimlyn posted...

tbf as much of a dumb & clumsy tweet it is I'm all game for still pissing off the triggered transphobes

Yeah trans people exist is the laziest attempt they could possibly make, but you still know it is sending certain people into hysterics so honestly I dont totally hate it?

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

LordoftheMorons posted...

Looking further it looks like I may have been mistaken; an article I found did say that the process was like what red sox described, with Harris making the (very unusual) move to overrule the parliamentarian unilaterally, and then a (fillibusterable) vote would have to be taken to overrule her.

That said, if Manchin was opposed to that move (as I imagine he would be), he could still then vote against the final bill for that reason (though yeah, that's a harder vote for him than just voting against the parliamentarian overruling itself would be).

Ok so for clarity - can the democrats literally pass whatever they want through reconciliation then? If Harris can just say "nah" unilaterally, then is there any limit to this? I vaguely recall they can only do it on two "spending" bills per year, but if you can ignore the parliamentarian do those limits still apply?

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

fuming posted...

https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1365096410362781701?s=19

Here is another example, if Kamala wanted to help give us $15 min wage that she claimed to support, she could. But she has signalled she isn't going to do so.

Im not well enough versed on specific senate rules so please feel free to correct me, but is this true? Everything I had read before was that things could only be included in reconciliation bills if allowed by the senate parliamentarian.

Because if they can just ignore that couldnt they just pass whatever they wanted through reconciliation? I know that isnt true, so Im assuming theyre wrong here.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

You know, I always mix up which one it is, and I'm sure I'll forget by the next time I type it out.

(But I do remember his free time of having to best all his siblings to take over as the head of his family, at least)

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."